firthfandomcom-20200213-history
Cecil Grey II
Cecil Grey II is a warrior of Astyrian birth; the son of Lucy Grey and her husband, a mercenary from Jacia. Cecil moved to Tyrus soon after his birth and was then taken to Temaria, the place of his raising. Description Cecil is said to have the appearance of his Rhodellian ancestors; blond-haired and blue-eyed. He has a fit, warrior-like build, and a feline face. He's almost always seen wearing an armored grey Jacian coat. History His life on Astyria was largely happy, growing fast and basking in the love of his mother; he was the delight of her life. The Jacian’s less-than-stellar character meant they co-existed, but this was a happy situation; they shared life with a southern woman named Saraphine, who was like a sister to Cecil’s mother, and her children; Cecil’s half-siblings. In his fifth year, the settlers of Astyria abandoned the isles and made for the larger Tyrus, where they began to establish their own stake anew. During this time on Tyrus however, Cecil’s father was killed by wild animals, and his mother faced political danger. Together with their half-family, Cecil and his mother left Tyrus for northern lands, hoping to find the father’s family in Jacia and a place to settle, away from the whirlwind of their previous life. Unfortunately, Jacia is a rough land, unsuitable for the way they wished to raise their children, and so they migrated south to the Calliea region of Temaria, where they purchased a rose farm with their remaining funds, and settled. Lucy raised Cecil as well as she could; her wide-ranging education helped her teach Cecil along many of the same subjects, and he enjoyed a fairly interesting range of topics to learn on. He took to many of them with a natural curiosity, a trait exhibited in the boy since his infancy. Cecil’s relationship with his half-siblings; Andingo and Saphima, became an odd one. Andingo took after his father and forced his younger brother into competition, a situation Cecil always rose to but was never happy with. Later on, this focused on their sister; both fought to be the favored one, and thus neither won, as Saphima was gentle, tough, independent, and had little patience for her brothers’ antics. As they grew older, Andingo fell in with Jacian border scufflers, perfecting his talents with brawling and stealing, utterly carefree and pleased with his lot. Cecil fell into resentment, and took to long walks alone in the cedar forests around their farm, talking fruitlessly to the silent companions the forest animals became. Lucy determined to give him higher purpose. An elderly man had befriended her early on when she and Saraphine had arrived in Temaria, a long-forgotten swordmaster from Lyoncia’s Reyeshire fields, Baithius Sedge. After he had met the keen-eyed young man, his eyes twinkled, and he agreed to take him on as an apprentice. This new vocation consumed Cecil, it became his life to practice, to become better, to learn. Not just swordplay, but the arts surrounding it, the writing, the morals, the manners. Sedge would teach him to become a knight, over time. He began to fight Andingo to a stand-still, his eyes sparking dangerously. Their matching Jacian coats both saw the stain of bloody noses. The resentment was something he always struggled with, the need to be something better and more meaningful than his brother and father; only to Lucy did Cecil ever really amount to what he was worth. Only to his mother was he ever the shining sun he so desperately wanted to be. Sedge couldn’t be prouder. Ever since his exile, his biggest achievement was a dead troup of bandits here or there, but now he had raised a knight out of what he saw as one of the most naturally talented apprentices he had ever had the honor of mentoring. He had made Cecil Grey a knight, and an exceptional one at that. But he knew the boy still lacked purpose, so he focused the last of his teachings on the moral, the spirit of a knight. Truth, Justice, and Mercy. Cecil’s eyes shined as he took it all in, as his soul grasped the higher meaning and his heart became resolved. When Sedge packed his house into a sack, when he took to the dust of the lonely road with his protege, he didn’t just walk beside a young man with the cultivated and trained heart of a knight, but the freed heart of a hero. Lucy bursted with pride when Cecil came to leave the farm. Even Andingo’s slights couldn’t affect him at that point, he was riding a cloud. He was where he had always wanted to be. The boy that had once rode sheep and brandished a dull dirk at spiders now tramped down the road beside his mentor, a sword at his hip and a purpose in his being. The first few months were a storm of hardship. The glinting light of the life the curious Cecil expected was tarnished by the dirt of living on the road and experiencing the worst of life. Sedge took the chance to teach the practical lessons; the first when the two ended up taken prisoner by a group of bandits. Killing was the only way out, and so Cecil learned that hardest of lessons the fastest way possible; it’s either him or it’s you. It wouldn’t be the first bandit blood his blade tasted; traveling along one of the more forsaken roads into the east, along the Tympus mountains, numerous bands of murderers and thieves tried their luck. But Sedge had skill in his bones yet, and Cecil was a cyclone in combat. He had been taught well, but his instinct was all-natural. The two managed to survive along these roads all the way to a smaller northern city, in near the Maertha region. Tyso was nearly as rough a place as the roads they had come off, the stone just as cracked, the men just as dark-eyed. Cecil’s shining spirit continued it’s tempering, just as Sedge had hoped. His mercy became more keen and his justice more sharp, his idealism was brought to heel and replaced with the best one could hope for, in a world as hopeless as the one they inhabited. The death of murderers, the saving of innocents, all of these came true over the following months, but each time more efficiently than the last. Cecil became an expert at killing for good. In Sedge’s eyes, this was perfect. To the Flowered clergy they rescued one overcast day in the rocky hills, Cecil was barely less monster than the men he saved them from. The young man, the mutt of a boy and the grimy hero, his was forever a balancing act. His father’s instincts flew through his blood like ravens, violence was in his veins. Sometimes it burst out suddenly and lives would be seen ended. More often, he struggled to curb it. To remember Saraphine’s gentle spirit and his mother’s rational ways. After a struggle with caravan raiders on a central road, Cecil pounced on Sedge, mistaking him for a brigand. The look in the old man’s face rocked his core. After a silent night with his thoughts, he was shocked by the sight of Andingo in himself, and from that time he decided to change his path. To be something more focused on helping the hurt, than killing the evil. This was easier thought-of than committed to; killing was his talent, and a harsh side had been curbed by his time in the world. The gentler, kinder Cecil, the wondering boy, would have to be dug out of the cedar forests of Temaria, the spot of so many quiet walks in the years before. Sedge was getting far too old to carry on as they had been. Half the roads in Ikarios were safe by their swords, but time is the assailant that can’t be dueled. In Cecil’s 21st year, he buried his old master with the greatest honors he could, atop a mountain amidst the strong winds, under the blue expanse of the heavens. Suddenly without any kind of advisor, Cecil decided to travel back west. He had left Temaria about 5 years back, and he had a sudden yearning to return home, if only for a little while. With the sun at his back, his coat on his shoulders, and his sword at his hip, he once again began the familiar walk of the traveler’s road. Eventually, he reached the old rose farm, and was welcomed back with plenty of warm hugs. It was strange to sleep in his bed again, when he was such a different person, but his misgivings were quickly caught onto by the endlessly clever women of the family. Within the first few days of his arriving, he was back in the routine of things; set about doing farm chores and gathering the cut roses in woven-baskets. The work was solid and did him good, to get his hands toiling at something other than violence, and underneath the warm Temarian sun. Still, his heart swirled with feelings and his mind with thoughts. Those last five years were really the last of his training, but his mentor was dead and gone, the guiding voice cut silent. He was on his own, with the power he’d been given. Now he had to figure out what to do with it. Quiet walks through the Cedars, accompanied by the life of the forest, replaced his farm work once again, just as they had done in his younger years. Category:People